


What's not living can never really die

by TyrantTirade



Series: MCU kink bingo [8]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Addiction, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Depression, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, Friends With Benefits, I'm Sorry, Loneliness, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Neighbors, Not Happy, One-Sided Relationship, Sex Addiction, Sexual Coercion, Sexual Content, Switching, Therapy, Unhappy Ending, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-25 19:30:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13219659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TyrantTirade/pseuds/TyrantTirade
Summary: Steve's got those eyes, freshly fucked and a little stoned on it, glassy and even bluer than they usually are. His hair is a mess and he trips trying to get his pants up. He looks like an idiot but he still looks beautiful.Bucky thinks he's beautiful every time, and there's been a lot of damn times.





	What's not living can never really die

**Author's Note:**

> I got a bingo square for sex addiction and i thought, addiction isn't glamorous, it's not cool, it's not fun. It's a fucked up thing that makes wonderful people into horrible people and it hurts everyone effected by it. So i decided to write this miserable thing for that instead of making it out to be like this great thing. 
> 
> So especially heed the dub-con, manipulation, and mental illness tags. And maybe dont read if you aren't into sort of depressing fics.
> 
> All mistakes are mine.

Steve's got those eyes, freshly fucked and a little stoned on it, glassy and even bluer than they usually are. His hair is a mess and he trips trying to get his pants up. He looks like an idiot but he still looks beautiful.

Bucky thinks he's beautiful every time, and there's been a lot of damn times. 

But Bucky pretends like his focus is on his cigarette, not his transfixion on Steve. 

Somehow everything he does is captivating.

Steve gets his pants up and he smiles, grabbing his phone from Bucky's dresser with one hand as he forces his keys in his pocket with the other and says, “I'll text you.”

Because that's what he always says. 

And he does it, yeah. But it still feels like rejection. 

“Alright,” Bucky responds, picking up his room temperature beer from earlier and taking a swig to get the taste out of his mouth. 

Once Steve leaves he'll shower until the water goes cold, and brush his teeth longer than he should, and try to get some sleep like he does most nights.

It's starting to feel ritualistic. OCD maybe.

—  
Bucky's only asked him out once and the answer was a pitied “I'm sorry, I can't,” smile tense. He's been too afraid since to bring it up.

It's not that he needs a date, he's never exactly needed those sort of monetary things. 

He feels like a secret though. Like Steve plans to take him with him to the grave. 

—  
They fuck twice the next day. 

That morning Steve walks from his apartment two doors down and knocks on Bucky's door as Bucky's drinking black coffee. 

He can see Steve through the peephole and the first thing his instincts tell him to do is to leave it. He'll go away, let him knock. 

But he feels a little like he's losing all sense of self control. As if he's ever had it in the first place. Grasps his palm into a fist before opening the door. 

Steve smiles and Bucky smiles back because he can't help it. He listens to Steve ask him about his morning, answering sincerely but isn't surprised when Steve invites himself in and presses him into the wall. 

He's even less surprised that when they're done, Steve kisses him and says thanks and goes like it's nothing. 

Because, maybe Bucky is the only one making it into something at all.

His head gets heavy and shaky and before he can control it his fist lands into the wall. 

His knuckles burn and ache and drip blood down his forearm and his hand swells. He clutches it tight in his shirt and spits out his anger, curling in on himself. But it feels okay, it feels better than how Steve makes him feel.

—  
Bucky doesn't really have anyone anymore.

Growing up he had a crucifix on his door and a bible next to his bed and mama didn't like that he kissed the boy on the cover of her magazine that one time. 

She really didn't like that he kissed one in his dad's beat up ranger in high school. 

And she especially didn't like that he abandoned her at eighteen for one. 

So they haven't spoken in nine or ten years and he's not really sure if he can say it's for the best. 

He doesn't really have anyone anymore and he wishes sometimes that things weren't the way they are.

—  
He works nine to five, staring at a computer screen and that's what he blames his headaches on.

Really he doesn't get much sleep anymore.

—  
Anyway- his hand hurts that night. He's got it wrapped up, knuckles bruised, already just a little past tipsy, and Steve doesn't ask about it as they drink beers on the stairwell and he doesn't ask about it when Bucky uses his other hand to clutch Steve's hair as Steve sucks him off and he doesn't ask about it when Bucky doesn't use that hand when he returns the favor and he doesn't ask about it as he gives Bucky a kiss and says good night.

—  
They fuck all the time and it's not like an organized thing. It’s Steve knocking and texting and calling and begging and bribing. Day in and day out Bucky has said no and hes said he's sore or he's tired or he's sick but it always ends in Steve pleading for it, for something, or telling him that he can do other things, he'll make it good, Bucky can just lay back and Bucky always, ceasingly, gives in. 

Steve knows what no means but Bucky's starting to think maybe it's him that doesn't. 

He keeps wondering why he does it to himself and then he does it again in a cycle.

He used to love to fuck but now he's not sure if he loves anything anymore besides Steve. 

—  
His therapist recommends him to group. He didn't tell her much, just that he feels alone a lot and depressed a lot and even though he's been consistent on taking his zoloft and he exercises like she told him to and he eats well. He still feels like he's burrowed himself so deep into this pit that no medications will dig him out. 

He feels like he can grasp the concept of building a staircase but his arms have given out from digging down that he can't dig back up. 

He gets a printed sheet of times and names and problems and he's not even sure where to start. Or even if she should start at all. 

One of them though is sex addiction and it makes him squint, twist up his face uncontrollably. 

He thinks, he can't really be a sex addict because if he had the choice he would probably never fuck again, but then again he can't say no so maybe that's why. 

—  
Bucky runs his hands up Steve's hips. They're so small, he thinks, sliding them upwards to his chest where it broadens and it's no longer small but it's so warm under his fingers. 

He can feel Steve's warmth radiating off of him like mars. Warm and far away. 

He fucks him and it doesn't feel like much but he likes the way Steve sounds when he chokes into a pillow and he likes the way Steve looks when he stretches his arm in to touch himself. 

He moves himself slow and deep and watches, enraptured by the way Steve tilts his head and shuts his eyes tight, mouth hooked open.

Steve comes and Bucky stills, watching as Steve gets taken over. Something in his expression and the drop of his shoulders is like he's falling out. Gone from his body for a moment and he wonders if thats why Steve likes him so much.

Maybe Steve loves the fall.

Maybe he's just an easy push to Steve. 

He doesn't come. Just ties the condom off, tossing it and hopes that Steve doesn't notice.

—  
This time when Steve leaves he turns his head away from Steve's kiss and Steve blinks like he's confused and then stalls before he leaves and Bucky begs that he never comes back.

—  
Until the next day of course.

—  
Bucky finally goes to that group and he's late. Very, very late. But he's there. 

He takes a seat at the back in an unsturdy metal chair and tries to hide in his hair like it'll keep him safe. 

“I'm jennifer and I'm addicted to sex.” the lady at the podium says and Bucky thinks about how much courage it takes to admit that. 

The first step in treating addiction is admittance, he once read and in his mind he practices, “My name is James and I'm addicted to sex,” but it feels loose on his tongue like he's drooling it out. 

The first step in treating addiction is admittance.

But she's courageous and he's never been. He'd rather run away than face anything and he respects that she can just stand up there and talk about this humiliating thing like it's okay to talk. 

He wonders why he's always thought it's not okay to talk.

—  
Steve and Bucky met by running into each other in the halls of their building. Steve's plastic cup hit the floor on impact and Bucky, stupidly, insisted on buying him another. 

In the coffee shop Steve asked him if he's single and Bucky said, “My last thing ended on a not so high note so i've been staying away from people.” Which was true at the time but now it feels stupid. Stupid and benign and so far in the past that he's not even sure how that hurt him so much anyway.

Steve nodded thoughtfully and asked “Did he break your heart?” and for a moment Bucky doesn't trust it, thinks maybe it's a trap. 

But he said, “Yeah, he did.” 

And Steve apologized like it was his fault. 

—  
Just a few hours later Bucky sucked him off in his apartment. 

—  
When he looks back he realizes that, really, he's the reason it started in the first place. He initiated it, he asked for it, he wanted it.

Because he's loved Steve since the very second that he spilt his coffee.

And Bucky's no good at the whole love thing. 

—  
He's loved a million things before but Steve feels vital. Like his heart won't beat without him.

—  
“I'm Steve and i'm addicted to sex.”

—  
Bucky's stomach drops and he looks up and somehow he's not surprised at all. It's not an optical illusion, he's almost positive that he isn't going crazy. He's looking up at the exact Steve that he thinks it is, confessing himself to a group of strangers.

Yet it somehow feels like it can't be real. Because Steve's so perfect, Bucky thinks. Steve's too perfect to be here.

Everyone in the room says, “Hello Steve.” Bucky can't keep himself from joining in too.

Steve grins down, oblivious that Bucky's watching and Bucky can feel Steve's smile jab into his chest. A sharp, burdening ache that, in some fucked up pavlovian way makes him smile too, despite how little he wants to smile right now. 

“I've been with only one partner for several months now,” Steve says. And Bucky is sure that he's that one.

Which is simultaneously both relieving and frightening in so many different ways that he can barely manage to wrap his head around it. 

“But, um, sometimes it hard,” Steve continues, “Sometimes I wish i could get a grasp. Or maybe, at the very least, stop making everything about myself.” 

And there's not really much in Bucky's mind. There should be, but there really isn't, because he's just looking at Steve and even right now, while he's angry and confused, and so fucking lost that even the decision to take a breath is hard. He doesn't see anything but Steve's red eyes, all dark and bagged and dull. And he's so fucking beautiful. 

And he wishes, maybe he could have gone to a group therapy session for people addiction.

—  
Steve doesn't always leave after they fuck though. 

Sometimes Steve lays around, Stares at the ceiling with Bucky and usually they dont talk but its the closest thing they have to stability. It's those moments that Bucky sees that Steve’s a human too and goddamn he loves him so much that it hurts.

Sometimes Steve brings him food or drinks or neat things he found at the flea market. 

Sometimes Bucky tells Steve about his job, or his hobbies, at least a little. And sometimes Steve does the same thing back. 

Sometimes Bucky thinks that what they have is more than just a dead end street. 

He's been ignoring those signs for what feels like forever.

—  
“But well,” Steve laughs, “What can i say? Im selfish. I have no control over myself or my selfishness either. Like my head and myself are two different things. Sometimes it's like I'm pretending everything is okay the way it is when i know it isn't.” 

Bucky knows that feeling, he thinks, he knows it like he knows the back of his hand.  
“And it's like im a slave to it,” Steve admits. 

—  
Bucky's angry, he's festering with it, seething with it. But not at Steve. He's angry at everything that made Steve feel the way he does. He's angry that dependence is such a natural human thing. He's angry that none of his anger is for Steve. 

The lights in the room are bordering on too bright and he feels almost like something is panning in on him but it just won't focus. Steve won't look at him, he just won't, too busy with everything else that Bucky's just an irrelevant figure in the background. 

Someone there to listen but not to be seen. 

And Bucky just wants Steve to see him. 

—  
The first time, that Bucky can recall, that he was entirely, officially, indisputably, gone for Steve wasn't long at all after they met. 

Maybe it's because Steve was like a cure to Bucky's heartache. His post-breakup resolution. 

Or maybe because he saw Steve and he thought that he was the best thing he could ever get. No one would ever stack up to how fucking Beautiful Steve is. 

Regardless, it hit him like a ton of bricks. 

Steve brought over food that just got tucked into the fridge for awhile so Steve could fuck him over his couch's armrest. 

But afterwards, for the first time, Steve actually stayed. 

They watched shitty late night tv and ate the leftover italian that in retrospect Steve probably got on a date with someone that isnt Bucky. 

But Bucky looked over at Steve and Steve looked back, grinning at a stupid saturday night live joke and it was like a watch swinging side to side, the longer he looked at it the more he couldn't look away. 

And he still can't.

—  
Steve's art is perfect just like him.

He smells like oil paint and stained wood and everything Bucky has ever wanted. 

He runs his fingers along Steve's big stack of canvases sometimes and wonders what's on Steve's mind and why he thought about painting an astronaut. 

He thinks about asking but he knows he not here for that. He never has been.

—  
Bucky lays in bed that night and he thinks and he thinks and he thinks until the next morning. 

Getting out of bed, he pretends that he got some sleep as he drinks coffee and rubs his dry eyes 

—  
When he gets a text from Steve that day asking to hang out later, he just says sure and makes his best attempt to go on with life despite feeling like he's forgotten how to breathe. 

—  
He's memorized the freckles on Steves arms and he knows that Steve has never noticed those kinds of things about him too. But he hopes maybe he's at least looked at him once.

—  
Steve knocks in his usual pattern. He's not wearing much besides some pajamas and a careless smile and that makes nausea run heavily through Bucky. 

“Hey,” Steve greets softly. 

And like always it lights Bucky up on the inside. His heart twisting. “Hey.” 

He lets Steve in and tries to not get straight to the point of why Steves there, walking into his kitchen, opening his fridge, and offering Steve a drink. 

Pulling out beers as always. Sobriety and Steve seem to be an unmanageable combination. 

But before he can open the tab on one, Steve Is on him. Wrapped to his back, breath hot in his ear, and Bucky feels desperate to move away. 

He tilts his head to the right, but all that it does is gets Steve's mouth closer to his neck. 

Steve's voice is deep and raspy, “I missed you,” he mumbles, as if a day and a half has been a lifetime. 

Time has gotten weird though, so maybe it has been. 

Bucky doesn't respond, pushing back from the counter and in the process making Steve move away. 

When he turns, Steve doesn't quite look like Steve. He looks lost.

Bucky knows by now that Steve's not all that familiar with rejection.

His mouth feels dry and heavy but he manages, “Do you think that- that maybe we could just talk or something,” he gestures towards his couch, “We could watch a movie or something. Maybe get take out.” 

Steve blinks, swallowing visibly as he sputters, “I'm- I'm kind of- I didn't really want to be out too late.” And Bucky expects it so much that he's not even hurt by it. 

“Yeah,” he starts, “I figured.” 

“We can talk though,” Steve starts, “If that's what you want.” 

Really, Bucky isn't sure what he wants at all but he nods and he opens his beer so he can hide how badly his hands are shaking.

He opens his mouth though and nothing comes out.

Until Steve says, “Do you want to stop?” 

Which makes the words on Bucky's lips feel even thicker. He doesn't really mean to say it but he says “I just want you to love me.” 

Steve stares like he's forgotten how to talk. 

And for the first time Bucky, stupidly doesn't decide to just shut his mouth about it “I saw you there.”

“Where?” Steve asks cautiously, trembling enough that Bucky can see it. 

Bucky's breath catches in his throat with the realization of what he said, “I- I didn't know you'd be there.” 

“Why were you there though?”

If Bucky would have known how stupid he would feel he would have never said anything to start, “I thought i needed it,” he responds sheepishly. 

“That's so fucking stupid of you,” Steve starts, covering his face with his palms.

Bucky hunches, entirely aware of how fucking stupid that was. He drops his head and looks at his palm digging in his pocket instead of up at Steve. 

“Did you fucking follow me?” Steve asks, voice terse. He takes a step back and let's a groan out. 

“No, not at all. I just- I don't know why I was there,” Bucky lies. His chest catching in his throat and he wishes he could take it back. Maybe take everything he's ever done back

In that moment never having met Steve at all seems better than loving him as much as he does. 

He continues, “It was stupid of me and- and I, I'm sorry. I wish I didn't, I'm sorry.” 

After a moment Bucky finally manages to have the guts to glance back at Steve. He's looking up at the ceiling and he looks so angry that it's scary. He shakes his head and lets out a breath. 

“What am i supposed to do?” Steve asks, finally looking at Bucky too but his hand combs through his hair and he pulls at it a little, “Huh? What do you expect me to do? I know what my problems are alright? You can't just-” he stops, hand balling into a fist as he grits his teeth and lets out a feral sort of growl. 

For a second Bucky fears that Steve's going to rip him apart.

Until Steve slumps, looking away, eyes wet, “You can't say that I'm not trying. Cause I'm trying real hard, okay?” 

Bucky nods, because yeah, he knows, he can hear it in Steve's voice. But he feels so fucking selfish in that moment that he cant stop himself from asking, “Do you love me?” 

Steve blinks once, then twice, slower than it should be. Like everything in the room is caught in a loop. Stuck in nothing. 

And he regrets that too, regrets asking but also regrets waiting so long to ask.

Steve's brows are furrowed and he looks at everything but Bucky. “Yeah- yeah I do. I do love you.” But something in the way he says it sounds so feined that Bucky thinks for a second that he would have rather heard a no. Because the first thing he wonders is how many people Steve has said the same thing to before him. 

“You don't have to lie.” 

Steve looks up, angry again, “I'm not lying,” he breathes. “I'm not fucking lying,” he repeats, voice thicker and harsher and heavier than it was and before Bucky can say anything on it Steve's stepping forward, making Bucky step back until his thighs hit the back of his couch. 

Steve's hands twine into Bucky's shirt. His eyes are red, heavy, but his pupils are so fucking black that it goes straight to Bucky's dick. 

And- he's a fucking idiot but he's so goddamn weak for Steve that he allows him to grab onto his face. He melts into Steves touch as his fingers spread out against his jaw and neck, resting there, as Steve asks, “Why don't you believe me?” 

Bucky shuts his eyes, hoping maybe he can wake up alone, like it's all been a fever dream. Because he doesn't think he could ever believe that Steve could truly love him back. 

He doesn't respond because Steve moves in tighter, pressing his mouth against Bucky's neck, mumbling again, “Why don't you believe that I love you?” 

But he knows it's not for him, none of this has ever been for him. He gives Steve the lies that he wants to hear by not saying a fucking thing as Steve bites into his collarbone until it bruises and then peels off Bucky's shirt and then gets him bent over the couch just like the first time Bucky let himself love Steve. 

—  
Steve's fingers dance up his thigh as they lie on his couch but he knows better this time than to kiss Bucky on the mouth when he leaves. 

Instead he leans in close and leaves one last one right under Bucky's ear and he says “I really do love you.” 

It's not a real goodbye but Bucky’s heart knows better.

—  
He calls into work sick and says he's been puking his guts out because he really fucking wants to even if it just won't happen.

But as he lays in bed alone with lamplight casting his shadow against the wall he swears he feels like something has died. 

Steve's just a few doors down but in a way it feels like he's up in the sky while Bucky's stuck on the ground. 

—  
The next thursday he gets a knock at his door and he lets out a jagged breath, knowing and dreading what's waiting behind it.

He's always been a coward.

It's hard to really move his legs but he gets up and he gets to the door, holding the handle for a minute or two as he watches Steve stand and stare at it through the peephole. 

As soon as he twists the knob he wishes he could take it back. Thinking, maybe this is all just a lesson in irreversibility. 

—  
Steve looks tired, his eyes dull and deep as he slides his palm across his chest anxiously. 

But for once Bucky feels like the bigger one. He steps back and asks Steve if he wants to come in and the way that Steve nods is almost heartbreaking. 

—  
Steves hands play with his coffee mostly. Bucky counts how many times he takes a sip and its only once and that's such an odd thing to see from a guy that can down a six pack in no time at all.

“So um,” Steve begins, his voice raspy like he hasn't used it in awhile. “So I've been thinking.” 

Bucky doesn't respond, giving Steve time to speak his piece. 

“I do love you, but-” he sighs, “I don't think the way that I love is the way that everyone else loves.” 

“Because,” he pauses, “I just- I want you more than I've ever wanted anything. I want to be surrounded in you every second that I'm awake. I just want to live in you or something.” 

Bucky watches him as he scrubs his face with his hands, “But I know that's not how you're supposed to love somebody. And I think-” he chokes and his shoulders sag even more “I think that as long as I'm with you that's all that i'll ever be able to feel.” 

He breathes again, “And I do love you, but I realized that that's what's stopping me from changing.” 

Silence fills the room heavily. Like  
A diagnosis or something. Terminal. 

Bucky pulls on a few strands of loose hair, taking in Steve's side for once, and it makes him think that the only thing there really is to blame is timing. 

Because maybe if they had met a year later or a few years before, things would be different. 

And really, like the addict he is, Steve's always going be inescapably hungry for that thing that he's addicted to as long as he's around it.

Whether “it” is a living, feeling, hurting, human being too, or not.

—  
So they talk, for really the first time. 

And they've never really been together so they can't really break up but they put an end to it all. 

And in a way it feels like weight off his chest, or maybe a knife pulled out of it. 

—  
They stay friends though. 

Bucky invites Steve to lunch and they talk and laugh and for once it feels like they can actually exist in the same space without someone being an object. 

Steve snatches food off of Bucky's plate and tells him about his recovery and Bucky hates to think of himself as a road block but it sure as hell seems like he was. 

—  
Bucky's still lonely, he's not sure if he'll ever not be. 

But Steve gets a new guy and he's handsome as hell and Steve is so fucking excited to introduce him to Bucky. 

And Bucky just hopes that the guy can show Steve what real love is supposed to feel like.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are appreciated! Happy new years everyone.
> 
>  
> 
> [Here's my Tumblr](Http://www.Tyranttirade.tumblr.com)


End file.
